The Columbia State Community College Student Veterans Organization, in collaboration with the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress, recently invited U.S. military veterans to share their stories of service.

The Veterans History Project is an archive at the Library of Congress that preserves narratives of veterans’ service through oral history interviews and documents such as photographs, letters, journals and diaries created while in the military, so that researchers and future generations can access these firsthand accounts and better understand the realities of war.

“Veterans have an inherent need to continue to serve,” said Bobby Toothaker, Columbia State facility support specialist and one of the co-advisors for the Student Veterans Organization. “Telling and having their stories preserved forever in the archive, is not only a great gift to future generations. It’s a meaningful way to continue to serve.”

Veterans signed up for a recorded oral history interview that lasted from 30-90 minutes.

Joshua Loran, originally from Seattle, Washington but now a Centerville, Tennessee resident,  was one of the veterans who participated in the Veterans History Project.

“I served four years in the United States Army,” Loran said. “The adventure and the discipline is what motivated me to join. It definitely set me up for success.”

“My sister Laura attends Columbia State and she asked me to come,” Loran explained. “I think this is really cool and it was a great honor to get my story out there.”

David French, who hails from Chicago, Illinois but now resides in Summertown, Tennessee, also participated.

“Altogether, I served about 15 years in the United States Army; I did almost eight years active, and in the National Guard a few times,” French said. “Pretty much every male in my family has been in the military and, growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, all my neighbors were Vietnam veterans.”

“I love the military I really do, but I’ll be the first to say it isn’t for everybody,” French continued. “I run a veteran nonprofit organization now, Military Sportsmen of America. There were five of us that started in 2019 and we’re a little over 5,000 members nationwide now. There’s on average 22 veterans a day that kill themselves, but if you look at the data from Veterans Affairs it looks like it’s closer to 65 a day. We’re just trying to stop that.”

French heard about the Veterans History Project from his daughter, Columbia State student Sarah Frazier, who is also a veteran of the Marine Corps.

Linda Finnegan, a Louisiana native who now resides in Nashville, Tennessee, served in the United States Army for 21 years.

“I went to college for one year after I got out of high school, but there was just nothing left in that town for me,” Finnegan said. “People from Louisiana usually live and die right there, so I decided I needed to get away and make something of myself.”

“It made me a more independent person,” Finnegan said of her military experience. “There were trials and tribulations believe me, but it made me more settled in knowing what I want and don’t want to do.”

These documents and interviews will become part of the permanent collections of the Library of Congress and will be made available to researchers and the general public via the American Folklife Center Reading Room and the VHP website. For more information about the Veterans History Project, visit https://www.loc.gov/vets/.

VHP also collects oral histories with Gold Star Family members, defined as a parent, spouse, sibling or child of members of the Armed Forces who died as a result of their service during a period of war.

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